shrill

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English shrille, beside the verb shrillen.^[2][3][4] Its origin is disputed: the revised OED (2024) and the Middle English Dictionary take the adjective as probably an alteration of shille (“sonorous, shrill”), with an r inserted through association with skriken (“to shriek”) and scremen (“to scream”),^[3][2] and Hoad too says that it superseded shille.^[5] That word goes back to Old English scyl, beside Middle High German schel, Dutch schel (“shrill”) and Old Norse skjallr (“resounding”).^[3][5] Etymonline, Barnhart, Collins and Dictionary.com instead connect it with Old English scrallettan (“to make a loud sound”),^{[6][4][7][8][9]} and compare Low German schrell, German schrill, Swedish skrälla (“to crack, clap”) and Old Norse skrölta (“to rattle, clatter”).^[4] The OED thinks this unlikely: it dates schril to about 1630 and the German adjective to the early 19th century, with its vowel probably taken from English, and it treats scrallettan and the Low German word as perhaps a separate group, ultimately of imitative origin.^[3] Etymonline and Weekley call the word itself imitative,^[6][10] and Johnson (1755) held it to be onomatopoeic.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To scream, cry out: before 1400, in a manuscript of Floris and Blauncheflur, a text of about 1250: Þe mayde, al for drede, Bygan to shrelle and to grede.^[2][3] Barnhart likewise dates the verb, as shrellen, to about 1250,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 13th century.^[12] The adverb is recorded from about 1330,^[3] and the adjective from about 1380.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The earliest uses of the adverb point to a pleasant sound rather than a harsh one: "with a pleasant or melodious voice" (about 1330 to 1425), and once "clearly, brightly", in Pearl.^[3] The adjective was piercing from its first record, used of voices and sounds, then from about 1425 also of the instruments that make them.^[3] From 1509 it described people, animals and tongues, and the OED notes that it later became disparaging, especially of women.^[3] Its use for keenness in the other senses, such as a pungent smell or a glaring colour, dates from 1608,^[3] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged still records it for an intense effect on the senses.^[12] The sense "stridently insistent" appears in 1836.^[3] In English dialect, the English Dialect Dictionary records shrill for "clear, thin", of muslin, in Northamptonshire, and "to shudder" in Wiltshire.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – verb, to scream or cry out, as shrelle.^[4][2][3]
• c. 1330 – adverb, with a melodious voice or sound (obsolete by 1425).^[3]
• c. 1380 – adjective, of a voice or sound, high-pitched and piercing, as schrylle.^[3][4] Etymonline dates it to the late 14th century.^[6]
• c. 1425 – adjective, of an instrument or thing, producing a piercing sound.^[3]
• 1509 – adjective, of a person, animal or tongue.^[3]
• 1579 – verb, of an instrument or thing, to produce a piercing sound.^[3]
• 1591 – noun, a high-pitched, piercing sound.^[3][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1589.^[12]
• 1595 – transitive verb, to utter in piercing tones.^[3]
• 1608 – adjective, sharp, pungent or glaring in other senses.^[3]
• 1836 – adjective, stridently insistent.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a sound or voice, sharp, high-pitched and piercing: a shrill blast from the referee's whistle.^[7][12][3]
2. Giving out such a sound.^[7][12][3]
3. Expressed with strident insistence; loud and forceful: shrill attacks on the budget.^[3]
4. Sharp or intense in its effect on the other senses; pungent or glaring.^[12][3]

Verb

1. To make a sharp, high-pitched sound; to scream.^[12][7][3]
2. To utter something in a shrill tone.^[12][7][3]

Noun

1. A shrill sound: the shrill of a factory siren.^[12][3]

Adverb

1. (archaic) Shrilly.^[12][14]

Word family

• shrillness
• shrilly
• unshrill
• outshrill

Related words

• skirl

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press